Inquisition 21
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Sex abuse
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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
Sex abuse is the latest expression of absolutism
A 21st century tragedy
Reflections on the suicide of a young Michigan teacher
Brian Rothery
Although the age of consent to have sex in Michigan USA is 16, a law enacted in June 2003 makes it illegal for a teacher to have sex with a student in the same school. Brian K. Corbitt, 28, a teacher in a Michigan school, began a relationship with a girl pupil in his class while she was still 16, and they had fully consensual sex in March 2004, just before she turned 17.
On April 3 the girl's parents contacted the police. He resigned April 6 when school officials questioned him. He was arrested, charged, released on bail and awaited sentencing. While working at a pizza parlor in Adrian, he wrote to the judge: "I do not think I can survive a prison sentence." In his related written statement, he said, "I thought we were genuinely in love. I didn't know it was a crime."
On a Monday morning in June, Corbitt was to be sentenced by Calhoun County Circuit Judge Conrad Sindt on counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a 16-year-old female student. He was facing a mandatory prison sentence with a maximum of 15 years. The court's probation department recommended a sentence of six to 15 years. On that morning as the court awaited his appearance, a local sheriff announced that Corbitt had been found hanged to death, in an apparent suicide, in his home that morning at 5.30 a.m.
In court one of the lawyers said, "This isn't the first time we have had this happen during the course of a prosecution."
Corbitt’s girlfriend was in court and she wept bitterly.
How can we measure what we have allowed to happen to us?
The way I have chosen is to return to the year 1970 and to look for a definitive Western world view of when it is right for a girl to have sexual relations with someone her own age or older, and indeed to establish if there were any reasonably authoritative views on the subject then. I found none more ‘definitive’ than that of one of the authors of the world-famous Kinsey Report, Wardell B. Pomery, who wrote a book, published by Penguin in 1969 under its authoritative Pelican imprint, Sex for Girls, directed at preteen and teenaged girls and their parents. What I read was remarkable.
During his time at the Institute for Sex Research, Indiana University, Indiana, he interviewed 7,000 people about their sexual histories. The knowledgeable reader will know that the Kinsey Report was based on a large number of interviews about the sex lives of individuals and that its findings had a huge impact on how the people of the Western world viewed human sexuality and caused much of the subsequent openness about it. Amongst the 7,000 interviewed by Pomery were a large number of former high school students and a number of girls still attending high school. The latter ranged from thirteen to seventeen. That he could have interviewed them about their sexual experiences at all is the first sign of a dramatic change in our outlook in the thirty years since. On page 54 he deals with the question of when it is right for a girl to start going out, and having a relationship, with members of the opposite sex. His advice is “The only answer seems too simple to be true – but it is. The right time is when a girl feels that it is the right time (his italics). Should there be any doubt about his message, the paragraphs before this demonstrate his conviction that the only reason a young girl might not yet want to go out with a boy is that she has a personality problem, such as a fear that she is not attractive.
He also leaves little room for doubts about whether or not it is proper that the couple should be about the same age, on page 61 saying, “Then too, a girl often finds it gratifying to have the attention of an older boy, or even a man, because that sort of attention makes her feel more special.” He immediately goes on to discuss examples of thirteen or fourteen year old girls starting to form relationships. The only caveat he enters in a situation where the man or boy are much older is to warn the girl that he might be after sexual conquests only or not be fully mature, and all he says is that the girl ‘may want to reconsider seeing him’. He cites a greater age gap, that of the thirteen or fourteen year old girl and the 21 year old student home from college perhaps or working, and while the odds are now stacked more heavily against the success of such a relationship, ‘it is possible for two such people to have a good and meaningful relationship’.
He goes further. The fourteen year old girl may go out with the 35 year old father of the child she baby-sits, and while ‘it is possible that even this relationship could be a positive one’ it is more likely to be a disaster. In all these cases however the author’s main points are that the two are unlikely to share the same interests and that the older man may have psychological problems.
The influence of the findings of the Kinsey Report can be seen when at page 78 and beyond he expounds the virtues of girls having early orgasms. Those that experience them when they are young – ‘that is, up to fifteen – are those who have the least difficulty having one in marriage later on’. “Half the girls who have never had an orgasm before marriage fail to have one during the first year of marriage - - -.”
There is also no question of the sexual relations of young teenaged girls excluding full intercourse, and the only warning concerning this from the author is to avail of contraception to avoid unwanted pregnancy.
The most dramatic realization for this reader in a 21st century setting is that neither the author nor his publishers, and presumably neither his critics nor readers, appear to have any awareness of a moral or criminal element attaching to acts of a sexual nature with girls from age thirteen. The book is like one on hygiene or keeping fit, saying if you want to be normal and healthy you should not ignore your sexuality but use it in a practical and positive way.
How far we have come in thirty years!
The man who refuses to be a victim
The facts could not be clearer. Almost ten years before these events, in 1996, Mary Letourneau, a 33 year old teacher in Seattle, had sex with and became pregnant by a twelve year old male student, Vili Fualaau. She was sentenced to prison in late 1997, pregnant with his child, but paroled in January 1998 on condition she had no contact with him. By then their daughter had been born. Less than a month after her release, she was caught with Vili in her car at 3am after a night at the movies and arrested again. She was sent back to serve the rest of a seven year sentence. She was now pregnant with his second child. No case could be clearer. She even pleaded to two counts of second-degree child rape.
There was no early release this time, because, instead of accepting therapy, Mary Letourneau from inside prison and Vili Fualaau from outside made public pronouncements and even gave interviews about their love for each other. This caused outrage to the prosecution and child protection people. The police were not too surprised, because on the very first night in 1996 when they caught the pair at it in a van, they phoned Vili’s mother and told her what had been going on. To their astonishment the mother asked them to let his lover teacher bring him home. As a result, the police initially chose not to file a report, but changed their minds when news about the event broke. Letourneau's husband divorced her and moved to Alaska with their four children.
During the second part of her imprisonment, another daughter was born. Compounding the scandal, Vili Fualaau’s mother took in the two children, now, at the time of writing, aged six and seven, so that they would be with their father and until Mary Letourneau could once again take care of them.
Long before Mary’s eventual release, a torrent of media coverage began, including books and a television film. One question raised dire prospects for the child care industry. What would happen when Mary Letourneau was finally released from prison? Many wished that she never would be.
She was released in August 2004 to be reunited with Vili, now 22, and their two daughters. But there was still a ‘no-contact between the two’ order against them. On application this has since been lifted by a judge.
Mary and Vili have now announced their plans to marry in April with more than 200 guests invited to the wedding. Seattle papers have carried ‘Rape teacher to wed student’ headlines. Social professionals are dismayed. If only they had accepted counselling and therapy, this case might have had its 'proper' outcome.
Sex abuse
Age of consent - Gerald's story.
A 21st century tragedy
'Speed assaults’ on children
Parents, your children are now truly at risk
The Australian inquiry
Death penalty for sex acts in Georgia
The atrocities of consensual sex
Jessie and Tyler - did the dog do it?
His art became his life
Reflections on Thomas O’Carroll
Salivating over paedophilia
Another front is opening up
God help human sexuality!
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